Skip to main content

"Cleanse Thou Me from Secret Faults..."



I fail God everyday. There are days I fail Him by sinning willfully and there are days I sin and don't even realize it. We've all been there, I'm sure. When we sin willfully, we understand it and we can choose to correct the behavior at our own inclination. But how can we change the pattern of sin of which we are unaware?

A few days ago in my morning devotions, I came across Psalms 19:12. It says, "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." It struck me, and humbled me as I read, re-read, and pored over it in meditation. Here King David enlightens the believer to recognize that there are sinful actions, thoughts and behavior of which we are completely oblivious. In fact, we are repeat offenders because these sins have not been revealed to us. It got me to thinking, "what are my secret faults?" I'm sure those who observe me closely can tell me, and I could very easily return the favor because it's always easier to point out the faults of others. It's just very difficult to recognize our own.

Our spiritual walk with the LORD is strengthened when we strive for righteousness, that is, removing sinfulness from our lives. Secret faults included. The key is discovering what they are. Now, how do we discover them on our own?

First, David requests that God protect him from "presumptuous sins" (verse 13). According to Strong's Concordance, presumptuous means arrogant or proud. The sins we commit willfully show this arrogance. It has the idea of utilizing our strength over God's. When we keep those sins in check, our sense of humility will be strengthened. In our humility, we might just be more open to recognize our "secret faults."

Then, of course, comes a very familiar verse: Psalms 19:14 - "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. The word acceptable refers to sacrifice. We must be willing to give up our own ambitions to God. Our speech and inner thoughts should be on Him, for Him and to Him. This can be done through reading and meditating on His Word and through prayer. When we succeed in this, God's strength overpowers ours, humility abounds and our secret faults are revealed.

Read Psalms 19:12 yourself. Meditate on it. Commit it to memory. Doing so will make you conscious of the existence of your secret sins. The first step in realizing what they are, is realizing that they're there. "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making the Case for "Assault"-Style Weapons: It's a Heart Issue

In the wake of the recent school shootings in America, many have asked, "Why do we need access to "assault"-style weaponry as private citizens?" So... here's my take on the Second Amendment. Not to be argumentative... just posing a logical explanation. Let's say our government does begin to radically infringe upon our rights. Let's say a dictatorship does arise. The sole intent of the Founding Fathers to arm its people was to protect against a rogue government.  "But they never envisioned the type of guns we have today." This is the argument of many, which in my estimation falls flat on its face. Though they're right and it's true, the Founders could never have imagined the realm of destruction and devastation our modern-day privately-owned weapons wield. But they also never envisioned a government that has the military weaponry ours does today either. Can you imagine a suppressed citizenry trying to defend with single-s...
Post a Comment
Read more

God's Word - The Moral Compass

A few weeks ago, I was out in my garage organizing a bunch of unwanted items for a garage sale. To kill the silence, I turned on the radio. One of my favorite things to listen to is talk radio, usually on the AM dial. I also like listening to Crosstalk on CleanAirFM, which is what I tuned in to that day. The topic of the discussion that day entailed a photography company being tried in a discrimination case involving their refusal to provide services to a homosexual couple. The photography company clearly stated they reserved the right to withhold services at anytime if the event or business opportunity violated their religiously held beliefs. This is a stipulation many businesses, especially Christian businesses, adopt to protect themselves and their moral standards. The host of the show laid the groundwork for discussion by siding with the photography company saying that it was their right to withhold services and that it was wrong for the courts to proceed with discrimination charge...
1 comment
Read more

Walk as He Walked...

I love sports. Not all sports... just American ones... baseball, American football, basketball. Don't hate me, but you can have your soccer and hockey. Now, as to the aforementioned sports.. they appeal to me. They have for as long as I can remember. I was around ten or eleven when I really began to take note of certain athletes. Ones I aspired to be like. My favorite growing up was Bo Jackson. He was a two-sport athlete -- football and baseball. He was a beast of a man. He was big and powerful, yet, on the ball diamond, he had a grace about him. He took swings that were mighty, yet smooth. His form in the batter's box was impeccable. In the outfield, he could chase down what would normally be gap-bound doubles with ease. If you've followed sports going back to the late '80s and early '90's, you may even remember the highlight of Bo making a catch on the dead run and running up the side of the outfield wall because his momentum couldn't be stopped. On the...
Post a Comment
Read more